


It Was Snowing Butterflies

by sprookjes



Series: Zoenne's Christmases [2]
Category: WTFock | Skam (Belgium)
Genre: Christmas 2020, F/M, Kinda Fluffy, Pre-Christmas fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-17
Updated: 2020-12-17
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:28:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27927523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sprookjes/pseuds/sprookjes
Summary: Zoë is about to start decorating the flatshare for Christmas when someone arrives by surprise.
Relationships: Zoë Loockx/Senne De Smet
Series: Zoenne's Christmases [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2069856
Comments: 3
Kudos: 32





	It Was Snowing Butterflies

6 DECEMBER 2020

Zondag, 15:18

Zoë had just picked up the boxes of ornaments and brought them to the living room when the doorbell rang. She wasn’t expecting anyone—people rarely visited nowadays except for Senne, and he wasn’t coming today.Or so she thought. When she saw it was him, she felt instantly better. Not that she was feeling bad or anything, it was just the immediate reaction he caused on her.

“Hey.”

“Hey! What are you doing here?” She asks, surprised look on her face.

“What? You don’t want me here? I can go if—” He began saying, humor in his voice.

She grabbed him by his jacket and pulled him inside before he could finish his sarcastic question, closing the door behind them.

“Of course I want you here. I always want you here.” She said, giving him a quick, tender kiss.

“I thought you had to rehearse for that group presentation?” Zoë continues.

“Yep, that was the plan for today. Turns out that my classmates are huge assholes. The two of them cancelled on me even though this time around we were only going to rehearse through videochat. They’ve been postponing it for days, let’s see how badly this will turn out tomorrow once the presentation starts. At least I did my part, I practiced. It won’t be my fault when they get a low grade.”

He half-shrugs. After a second he notices her amused expression. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Because I love it when you sound both conceited and nerdy at the same time.”

He smirks.

After spraying sanitizer in his palms, (Milan and Senne were used to this routine by now; even though they’re usually careful, Zoë feels like she’s protecting all of them with it. They figured that if it made her feel better, so be it.) they walked to the living room, Zoë pulling him by the hand.

“If you want to practice some more I’d be glad to help.” She offers, looking back at him.

He smiles softly at her.

“Nah, I think I’m done with that. I’d rather enjoy our afternoon doing something else. What were you up to?”

“Oh, nothing important.” She mumbles, pressing her lips together.

As soon as they enter the living room, there it is—the real answer to his question, displayed above the coffee table.

“Oh! You’re decorating for Christmas? Already?!” Senne guessed, sounding genuinely interested.

“Yeah. I mean, all Milan does is talk about it (it was actually Zoë that would ask Milan about decorating the flatshare for Christmas at any opportunity she got) but he never has time. I came to the conclusion that if I waited for him, soon it would be January and there wouldn’t have been any Christmas decorations at all. So I’m starting to do it on my own, since it's obvious that he only cares about decorating when it's for Eurovision. ”

She shrugs, giving him an awkward smile.

“You could have asked me.” He offers, trying to catch her gaze.

She looks at her feet. No reply.

“Couldn’t you?” He insists.

“Well... I remember, you know.”

“What?” He replies, brows furrowed.

“That you...” She can’t bring herself to say the words. She doesn’t want to complain or sound whiny. She’s heard it so many times before. “Zoë, don’t be dramatic. This is such a waste of time and energy." "Would you really want to participate on the most capitalist/consumerist holiday? To fall for all that fake sentimentality?” She can hear her parents voices echoing those words inside her head.

“It’s nothing, I know you think it’s a waste of time and all.”

Zoë goes to sit on the couch and begins taking some decorations out of the boxes.

“ _I_ think it’s a waste of time?” He asks, confused.

She shrugs again, suddenly very interested in disentangling some of the Christmas lights from each other.

“Yeah, I don’t know... or... that it’s a dumb tradition? I’m aware it’s very unlike me. It’s a capitalist holiday, maybe the biggest one—I actually agree with a lot of the criticism towards it! I just... I can’t help it, I really think it can mean so much more than that.”

She's babbling. He can't comprehend why she sounds so guilty for liking a fucking holiday.

“Zoë—Senne tries to interrupt.

“It’s fine.” She says, wanting to bury that subject.

“I don’t understand where all of this is coming from but... remember we have a rule now?”

She huffs and even though it will sound ridiculous, she has to tell him. Because yes, that’s a rule now. Tell each other everything you’re feeling. Even when they think it's something embarrassing that won't matter. Especially if they think it won't matter. (Because sometimes, those are the things that actually end up mattering the most.)

Zoë knows where to begin and she hates that she knows it. She inhales deeply before starting.

“Do you recall that one night where I was folding the papers containing the Secret Santa’s participants names? I told you something about yours, something like “I won’t cheat and mark your paper so I can choose it, I promise.” To which you groaned and replied to me with: “I don’t think I want to participate on that.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. I knew it by the tone in your voice, that it wasn't your cup of tea at all and _yet..._ I kept wondering about it. We were lying in bed when I finally asked you why and you said, your back turned to me: “Too old for this shit, I guess”. I had to unfold all the papers to find yours because before that moment I thought I could still try to convince you to participate, and...”

She sighs really loudly, giving him a smile that failed completely in conveying what she was going for. It was Zoë’s “I’m such an idiot.” smile, instead. The only smile of hers that he didn’t like seeing.

Senne remembered vaguely of that night until this minute. When the memory started to come back to him now, he felt completely embarrassed.

“Fuck. You think I hate Christmas _and_ your excitement for Christmas.”

She rolls her eyes.

“I _know_ for a fact that you do. It’s okay. I just don’t want to force that on y—”

“Zoë, let me tell you something, okay?”

He finds room to sit beside the boxes on the coffee table just so he can sit right in front of her. Senne reaches for Zoë's hands, making her leave the Christmas lights alone for a minute so he can hold both of them in his.

“We were having the shittiest couple of months ever, as you might remember.” He lets out a dry laugh. “I... I noticed you were somehow _very_ into Christmas preparations so I decided to... prank you. And for that, I thought it would be a good idea to pretend I didn’t give a damn about it.”

“Wh—what?” She gaped at him incredulously, her eyes widening.

“I would pretend I was almost opposed to it until Christmas Day and then I would... I would...”

This was driving her nuts.

“You would...?”

“Surprise you on Christmas morning. With... well, my plan. Christmas breakfast, Christmas presents under the tree, whatever else makes Christmas great. The whole deal.”

Her eyes were welling up. _How lame, Zoë_ —she thought to herself. Time to look at their hands and try not to cry.

His smile was regretful.

“But as you know, before Christmas, we—”

He doesn't really want to finish that sentence, so he licks his lips and starts again.

“I still have the presents I bought for you last year and you spent all this time thinking I was shitty enough to not want to participate on your Secret Santa because I thought I was too old for that?”

Her mind was spinning, she was trying to fit all this new information into those past events, to reset her mind to this new reality.

“So... you don’t hate Christmas?” She was shaking her head, not daring to fully smile yet, but it was there, in her tone. In her teary eyes.

He grins, holding her hands tighter.

“I don’t remember the last time I had a decent one. About 10 years ago, probably. Whenever I’m invited somewhere on that day I enjoy the food, the drinks... it’s just not something you celebrate by yourself, that you can find joy on it alone. So yeah, that’s the only way I’ve been participating on Christmas for a long time. Not the best way, I guess.”

She closes her eyes, finally letting a big smile spread over her face. This was a nostalgic one.

“When I began to get excited for Christmas last year, it was... it was because I remembered Keer Fest 2018. The freezing cold air, the shitty drinks, the lights. You in that red hat and its red stars. Last year I let myself dream that I’d finally have someone that wouldn’t mind me loving Christmas time. Someone that might want to share it with me, even. It sounds really dumb, but... every year my parents made me feel like an alien for liking this holiday. If aliens liked Christmas, that is. I almost stopped enjoying it altogether because... well, it hurt. Like you said: you can’t celebrate it by yourself. There’s just no point in doing that.”

He couldn’t believe he had messed up this big while trying to make things better between them. Talk about bad move.

He touches her face. Thumb on her cheek, fingers caressing her hair. He leans in to give her a kiss. A kiss couldn’t fix past mistakes but it could definitely show her that the present was different.

A couple of seconds later—while their foreheads were still touching—Zoë says sweetly, looking at him as if in awe. “You don’t hate Christmas.” She still couldn’t believe it.

“It’s like I told you Santa is real.” Senne jokes.

“That’s pretty much the feeling!” Zoë says, beaming.

“That’s why you were pissed at me on that day you arrived with the tree?” She felt so ashamed and so seen. She nodded.

“Sorry. Fuck, an apology doesn’t seem enough.”

“Shut up, I made such a big deal out of it, I was just— _you know._ I was...” She trails off. He knew. It was too much. Everything that happened to her last year, she was drained and her emotions were on edge, this only adding to the fact that she’s already a very fierce person. Senne knows a thing or two about being intense himself.

“I know. And now you know you can invite me to decorate the tree with you. I promise I’ll try not to break anything.”

She smiles excitedly. “Senne De Smet, would you like to decorate this Christmas tree with me?”

“Yes, I would.” The next second she's kissing every corner of his face.

They spent that whole afternoon interspersing between kissing and disagreeing over where to place which ornament. When they noticed the pattern, they actually made it into a game: if Senne wanted to convince Zoë of letting him place X ornament where he wanted, he had to give her a kiss that would exceed her expectations, and vice versa. The game was going to end on a tie, but Senne was extremely convincing with his kiss that would actually take away a ribbon from the tree. He won, and Zoë wasn’t even mad about it. Plus, in the end the tree had turned out looking much better than she had first imagined it.

Zoë felt the type of love she always dreamt of finding in moments like this.Senne, more than the love, felt like he was discovering a new favorite thing. It made him look forward to many future Christmas preparations with her. Seeing Zoë this full of joy was contagious and even though he still felt bad for letting her down last year, he couldn’t get over the way it all fit perfectly in this one.2020 had been a year full of difficulties and loss for so many people. The world was still upside down and the more he thought of it, the more he felt grateful that his life was being rebuilt instead of torn apart. And she was there with him. The only person he needed to be there with him.

Just when he thought they were done, she exclaims, “Now one more thing, the final touchl!” He couldn’t imagine what that could be. It looked perfect to him already.

“So much has changed in a year. I wanted to add something to the Christmas tree that would represent that. The other day while browsing a website I came across these...” She picks up a little box from the bookshelf.

“And it just made sense. Instead of stars, this year the tree will have these tiny golden butterflies all over it.”

Senne nods, smiling. Then he starts to help her distribute the golden butterflies along the Christmas tree.

“I wanted to add fake snow, but now I think it would be too much .” She says, pouting. 

“Looks like it was snowing butterflies, if it’s any help.”

“No! Do you really think so? Why didn’t you say anything earlier? I didn’t want to exaggerate, do you think I should take some of them off? Beca—“

“I’m kidding. Just grabbing the opportunity to parallel our Christmas tree to a book written by Darwin.”

 _Our_ Christmas tree. That’s the part of that sentence that stood out the most to her at first.

“What?” She asks, half a second later, wanting to understand what she hadn’t registered before.

“ _It Was Snowing Butterflies_ , by Charles Darwin?”

“ _Really_?”

“Really. Not bad for a primate, huh?” He arches his eyebrows, smirking, enveloping his arms around her.

“There you are again, being conceited and nerdy. You’re particularly such a Darwin nerd.”

“Darwin made you smile at me, gotta be grateful.”

“Hmm... Speaking of that day... Do you happen by any chance to still have that hat?” She asks, arms around his neck, twinkling eyes, smile with dimples showing.

“Only you, Zoë Loockx, to have a Christmas kink involving a ridiculous hat.”

“It was super cute, okay?” She chuckles at her own statement.

“It looks perfect. Our tree.” He says, serious now.

She bites her lower lip in order to keep a new smile from appearing so rapidly. It doesn’t really work. 

“I think so too.”

For once, Zoë doesn’t feel silly for looking forward to a Christmas Day. This year, there will be a real reason for celebration. This year, they will be spending it together. 

“Okay, now we have to test if the lights are working properly. Ready? On the count of three.”

She looks anxious, waiting for him to say it. 

“One.” Senne starts.

“Two...” She says, and then pushes the button.

She feels like two is the perfect number to do that, no need to wait til three. 

**Author's Note:**

> Happy 2 years of “If that’s possible, with such a small brain capacity.” “Especially when it’s already filled with you.” ♡ 
> 
> Here we are, two years later and Senne, that’s exactly how I feel about the two of you. 
> 
> My brain is so filled with them that all I can do is share it (through these stories) with you. 
> 
> See you all next week (yes, the 6 people that will read it—ALL SIX OF YOU), with an even more Christmassy fic. Aka Zoenne’s super fluffy Christmas. (Sorry, not sorry.)


End file.
